1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a method of manufacturing a liquid ejection head configured to eject liquid and a liquid ejection head.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink jet recording head as a liquid ejection head performs printing by ejecting ink supplied from an ink container in which ink is stored via an ink flow passage way member onto a recording medium such as paper. The ink jet recording head includes a recording element substrate in which a plurality of ejection openings for ejecting ink are arranged in a row.
The ink jet recording head receives electric power for printing signals or ejection of an ink jet recording apparatus. Therefore, the recording element substrate is electrically connected to a contact substrate which directly comes into contact with a contact portion of the ink jet recording apparatus via an electric wiring member. The recording element substrate and the electric wiring member are electrically connected to each other by a connection between a connecting pad provided on the recording element substrate and a lead of the electric wiring member.
In such a configuration, part of the electric wiring member of a flexible wiring substrate or the like is provided on the same side as a surface on which the recording element substrate is arranged. Therefore, when a printing operation is performed in a state in which a recording medium such as paper is curling up, an outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member on the side where the recording element substrate is arranged comes into contact with the curling-up portion of the recording medium, which may cause damage of the electric wiring member.
In order to prevent such an event, the outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member is adhered to a supporting portion with an adhesive agent on a surface where the recording element substrate is provided, so that the recording medium can hardly be caught thereby. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-320230, a configuration for bringing the outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member to be adhered to the supporting portion is disclosed.
When an adhesive agent is applied to the outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member, the size of the ink jet recording head is increased by an extent corresponding to the thickness of the adhesive agent. In particular, a mechanism configured to hold the recording medium provided in the ink jet recording apparatus is arranged in the vicinity of the outer peripheral portion in a direction orthogonal to a direction of feeding of the recording medium of the electric wiring member. Therefore, it is preferable to reduce the size of the ink jet recording head by reducing the thickness of the adhesive agent in the outer peripheral portion extending in the direction orthogonal to the direction of feeding of the recording medium of the electric wiring member.
A method shown below is known as a method of applying the adhesive agent to the outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member. In other words, it is a method of applying the adhesive agent to the outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member in the direction parallel to the direction of feeding of the recording medium and causing the adhesive agent to flow over the outer peripheral portion extending in the direction orthogonal to the direction of feeding of the recording medium of the electric wiring member by a capillary action. According to this method, a configuration in which the size of the ink jet recording head is reduced by reducing the thickness of the adhesive agent in the outer peripheral portion extending in the direction orthogonal to the direction of feeding of the recording medium of the electric wiring member is achieved.
The method described above is a method of applying the adhesive agent of an amount required for achieving adhesion of the entire circumference of the outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member over part of an application area and causing the adhesive agent to flow over a portion to which the adhesive agent is not applied. Therefore, when the adhesive agent of the amount required in the method described above is applied to the application area in a short time, the adhesive agent flowing outward from the area to be applied with the adhesive agent may run to a backside surface, which causes a risk of contamination of the ink jet recording head. On the other hand, when the adhesive agent is applied at a speed considering an overflow of the adhesive agent to the outside, a time length required for the application of the adhesive agent is increased, and hence a time length taken from the start of application of the adhesive agent to a complete application of the adhesive agent over the entire circumference of the outer peripheral portion of the electric wiring member is increased.